The Blinking Dashboard
By default, when you open a new tab in Google Chrome, you are greeted with the New Tab Page (NTP). This page contains the Google search bar, shortcuts to your most visited sites, and sometimes dynamic background images or news feeds. If you leave this page open in the background while working in another tab, you might occasionally notice your browser lag slightly. This is because Chrome will sometimes automatically refresh the New Tab Page in the background to fetch updated news articles or swap out the “Image of the Day” background, consuming unnecessary CPU cycles and network bandwidth.
Freezing the Start Page
To reduce background resource usage and stop Google Chrome from automatically refreshing content on the New Tab Page, you must disable the dynamic background and news feed features.
Open a new tab in Chrome to view the New Tab Page. In the bottom-right corner of the window, click the small pencil icon labelled Customize Chrome. A side panel will appear on the right. First, under the “Background” section, ensure you select Classic Chrome (a solid color) rather than “Daily refresh” or any of the dynamic art collections. Next, scroll down the side panel to the section labelled Cards (which controls the news and recipe suggestions). Click the toggle switch next to Hide all cards to turn it On. By removing the dynamic imagery and the live news feed, the New Tab Page becomes a static, local HTML file that never needs to refresh in the background.